4 months ago

4 months ago

4 months ago

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Making Their Case

The forecasters say three conference teams — Davidson, Dayton and Virginia Commonwealth — are comfortably in the NCAA Tournament’s field of 68. Meanwhile three other teams — George Washington, Rhode Island and Richmond — are projected as a #4 seed or higher in the NIT. In an ironic twist all too common for the Atlantic 10, the #1 seed in the conference tournament, Davidson, holds the lowest projected NCAA seed (#11) while the highest projected NCAA seed, Virginia Commonwealth (#8), fell to fifth in the conference race. While the projected NIT contingent are all comfortably “in,” none appear on anyone’s NCAA “First Four” or “Next Four Out” lists. Short of a win on Sunday, the destination for those three teams will not change.

Jordan Price (#21), who scored a game-high 28 points Thursday afternoon against UMass, will likely need to show that type of production again against Davidson. (Mike Stobe/Getty)

For the nine teams not penciled into either of the premier postseason tournaments, Wednesday and Thursday at the Atlantic 10 Tournament have become the moment of truth. Saint Louis and George Mason did not make it out of Wednesday night. It also ended poorly for a Massachusetts team that came out on the short end of a 77-69 game against La Salle. When asked about a potential CBI or CIT bid, UMass coach Derek Kellogg declined. NIT or bust. For Saint Joseph’s, last year’s tournament champion, the season ended at the hands of St. Bonaventure. With a 13-18 record, Phil Martelli’s Hawks will recuperate on Hawk Hill and plan for next season. The Bonnies must continue to win in order to work their way into the postseason conversation. They could steal an NIT bid if they can gather two more top 100 wins (which they will have to do to advance to the Sunday game). Taking down Dayton and then either George Washington or Rhode Island should do. Having compiled an 0-4 record versus that competition, however, and with star point guard Jaylen Adams sidelined, the odds are good that they will watch the game from the comfort of their dorms in Olean, New York. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Where They Stand

The conference regular season is two weeks away from finishing. Using possession-based offensive and defensive efficiency differences, three distinct tiers in the Atlantic 10 have emerged. The top five teams (see table below) — Davidson, Dayton, Virginia Commonwealth, Richmond and Rhode Island — have separated themselves from their nine conference-mates by an efficiency margin that will not disappear over the next four games. Richmond and Rhode Island present “Nitty Gritty” profiles that read “NIT” rather than “NCAA,” and Massachusetts, lodged in the middle tier but possessing a winning conference record and an non-conference schedule strength ranked second in the league, will test eyeballs and gut-checks. Those three aside, however, the conference records and efficiency margins are behaving more than in seasons past. This is not the conference that sent six teams to the NCAAs last March, but lacking any clear locks (Virginia Commonwealth might be the only team that could lose out and still draw an at-large invitation) the A-10 has three solid candidates for the NCAA Tournament and three more bubble teams. Reviewing the remaining games indicates that bids for the bubble will most likely come at the expense of the conference’s three strongest candidates.

These Teams Can Make the NCAA Tournament If…

Virginia Commonwealth (21-6, 11-3) — The Rams have to stay healthy and not lose to George Mason (RPI #221). Losing Briante Weber was a blow, but the recent two-game skid happened while senior wing Treveon Graham, coach Shaka Smart’s penultimate go-to guy, was sidelined with a ankle sprain. The three-game bounce back came with Graham in the lineup. In a one possession game when a score is necessary Smart will give Graham the ball and call for a clear out. VCU’s offense and defense took a step back during much of the season, but Graham’s numbers (usually coupled with one from an assortment of complementary parts, especially Mel Johnson and Moe Alie-Cox) have been strong enough to carry the team against most opponents on most nights. With one of the more challenging four games slates remaining (Richmond, Dayton, Davidson and George Mason have a combined conference record of 31-25, 0.554), the priority is to not lose to GMU. A 3-1 finish (24-7, 14-4) is probably optimistic, but anything less would put the Rams into tie-breakers with at least one other conference team. VCU holds the tie-breaker over Rhode Island (the most likely tie), but a loss to Dayton would give the Flyers the tie-breaker and should the loss come to Davidson, the Rams and Wildcats would have to muddle through the next set of tie-breaker rules to determine the #1 seed in Brooklyn. The Rams have been a regular fixture in the conference tournament championship game since joining the conference in 2012, but have yet to win either the regular season (and take the #1 seed in the tournament) or the tournament championship game.

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

How Last Week’s Games Determined Which Teams to Watch

Games last week confirmed that three undefeated teams — Virginia Commonwealth, Dayton and Rhode Island — have emerged as the teams to beat, while three others –Fordham, St. Louis and Saint Joseph’s — will struggle for the next nine weeks. For our three winless teams, the fact that each has played at least one contest against the group of VCU, Dayton and Rhode Island means there is a clear separation between those three and the other 11 teams in the conference. Saint Joseph’s third loss was, for example, to Duquesne, which carries two losses of its own (Dayton and Rhode Island). Phil Martelli’s squad may spring a surprise or two in February, but the youthful Hawks still have a lot to learn. Saint Louis lost a lot to graduation but a preseason shoulder separation to forward Grandy Glaze took even more experience away from Jim Crews’s team. Glaze had surgery last week to correct the separation and will not play again this season. Fordham’s points for/against margin is running at -36 through three games (-12 per game), a clear indication that the Rose Hill Rams are still “rebuilding” well into Tom Pecora’s fifth season. Their prognosis is not good.

Archie Miller’s Dayton club in right in the mix. (AP)

Virginia Commonwealth, which beat Davidson last weekend, faces a road challenge at Rhode Island this week and it will also get a visit from George Washington before the end of the month. Those three games represent the Rams’ biggest tests until the middle of February. Win those two and it is reasonable to think that the Rams could be 11-0 in conference play when they pay GW a return date. Dayton beat St. Bonaventure by 17 points, negating the Bonnies’ height advantage with a scorching 14-of-24 night from beyond the arc. The Flyers will face a Davidson squad on January 20 that also lives and dies by the three. A win at Davidson and at UMass beyond that would mean coach Archie Miller’s team could also enter February undefeated (8-0) in conference play and in good shape for an NCAA bid. Rhode Island, the least experienced of the three top-tier teams (average 1.4 years of experience, ranked #267 nationally), has the toughest path through the rest of the month, with games versus VCU and Massachusetts this week followed by a home date with George Washington on January 31. Win those three and the chances are good that the Rams will also sport an 8-0 conference record going into February. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Changing of the Guard

The BCS conferences may have soaked up most of the ink spent covering conference realignment, but the Atlantic 10 has undergone three realignment-triggered makeovers in the last decade. The long term triumvirate of flagship programs — Massachusetts, Temple and Xavier — were divvied up by the bigger fish, resulting in a conference footprint that has stretched far away from its New England, Middle Atlantic and Rust Belt roots, now creeping southward into North Carolina and westward to the Mississippi River. Temple, along with the football-playing remnants of the Big East, formed the American Athletic Conference, while Xavier, along with Butler (who paused for a cup of coffee in 2012-13) joined up with the basketball-first schools of the Big East. The Atlantic 10 in reaction brought in Charlotte (which has since returned to the C-USA), Davidson, Virginia Commonwealth and St. Louis. The three Philadelphia members — La Salle, Saint Joseph’s and Temple — gave the conference a Philadelphia-centric feel through the 1990s and 2000s, as at least one of the three schools took (or shared) the regular season title (or the tournament title) in 10 of their last 15 seasons together. As Temple and Xavier took their leaves to greener pastures, Virginia Commonwealth and St. Louis (with a challenge from resurgent Massachusetts) have stepped into the vacuum.

Could Mike Lonergan and George Washington truly challenge VCU for the conference crown? (Getty)

Non-conference returns hinted change was at hand, and the games of the conference’s first weekend offer a tentative confirmation. Consider that St. Bonaventure soundly beat Massachusetts, an NCAA Tournament last season, 69-55 in Amherst. Rhode Island, whose 29-63 record over the past three seasons was the nearly the mirror opposite of host St. Louis (81-23), beat the Billikens 65-53 at Chaifetz Arena (where the Bills have a 36-10 record over the last three seasons). Davidson opened its inaugural season in the Atlantic 10 with a resounding 81-67 win over visiting Richmond even as George Washington broke its road skid with a 64-60 win on Hawk Hill. Virginia Commonwealth is still the team to beat. Shaka Smart‘s program returned to the Top 25 this week in both national polls, coming in at #20 in the AP and #21 in the USA Today/Coaches polls. VCU will, however, have to contend with new challengers, two schools south of the Mason-Dixon line and two from the northern and eastern edges of the footprint, as the Rams try to win the conference title in their third season as a member.

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Looking Back

While games with the highest-ranked six conferences accounted for only 35 percent of last week’s conference schedule, they accounted for six of the eight losses the Atlantic 10 recorded. George Washington‘s win over DePaul represented the lone win the league has recorded this season against the Big East, but Rhode Island‘s E.C. Matthews, despite scoring 27 points, could not notch another one over intrastate rival Providence. Fordham took the other loss to a Big East team last week, as the Rams fell to crosstown rival St. John’s. The Big Ten’s Penn State beat two A-10 teams this past week, squeaking by Duquesne on Wednesday before turning around to beat George Washington over the weekend. Duquesne and Saint Louis lost troubling games to teams that play among the lowest-ranked conferences; Duquesne was upset by local rival Robert Morris of the NEC while the Billikens dropped a decision to the Summit Conference’s South Dakota State. Those kinds of losses drag down the conference-wide RPI, something to watch as the season carries on.

Despite a big game for E.C. Matthews, the Rams came up just a little short against their intrastate rival. (AP)

Three Games to Catch This Week

VCU vs Belmont (Tuesday 12/16 7:00 PM ET) — This should be a bear of a week for the Rams, as they face giant-killing Belmont on Tuesday and Cincinnati on Saturday. Tuesday should be an easier game, given VCU’s notable home court advantage and Belmont’s two-game losing streak. Both teams press and rely on turnovers to fuel their offense, and given that fact, both also have poor field goal defense. VCU has trouble defending the three-point line while Belmont converts efficiently from there. Hitting that three on a delayed break is the key stat for determining Belmont’s prospects.

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Virginia Commonwealth’s Struggles — After a series of double-figure wins to start the season at 3-0, the Rams have hit a 2-3 slump because of defensive collapses. During the five-game window, Shaka Smart’s squad yielded an average of 1.2 points per possession, well above the Division I average (0.995 PPP). Two of those losses (to Villanova by 24 and Virginia by 17) were not competitive. The loss to the Wildcats represented the largest margin of defeat since they lost to Michigan by 25 in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. While Treveon Graham, Melvin Johnson, Briante Weber and Jordan Burgess are carrying the offense, field goal defense is down and fouling is up, trends that do not bode well for the Rams come conference play.

After a hot start, Shaka Smart’s squad has cooled a bit. (Getty)

Massachusetts Misses Chaz Williams — For a Minutemen squad which had only a single loss heading into conference play last season, collecting four defeats with four non-conference games still to play throws a damper on any postseason expectations. Derek Kellogg’s squad is riding a three-game losing streak that includes a truly disappointing letdown against Florida Gulf Coast from the Atlantic Sun Conference. With two of their remaining four games away from the Mullins Center (at Providence and at BYU) and vs. Iona, a well-coached MAAC squad, still to come, UMass could enter conference play with as many as five to seven losses, a definite RPI killer. Except for freshman Donte Clark, the guards and wing forwards are struggling with their three-point shot this season (26-of-90).

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Let’s take a look at last week’s Feast Week action for Atlantic 10 teams and grade their performance appropriately.

Dayton, Massachusetts, Virginia Commonwealth:B — The Flyers, Minutemen and Rams won most of their tournament games, several against BCS teams. Dayton beat Boston College 65-53 to take third place in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, after edging Texas A&M 55-53 in the first round and losing to Connecticut 75-64 in the second round. 2-1 versus BCS teams made this a good outing. Massachusetts compiled a 3-1 record versus the field in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off, played at the Mohegan Sun casino in Uncasville, Connecticut. The Minutemen cleaned up in the preliminary rounds, handling Manhattan (77-68) and Northeastern (79-54) easily. Coach Derek Kellogg’s squad lost the opening round of the bracketed event to Notre Dame 81-68, but bounced back to beat Florida State 75-69 in the consolation round. UMass’ start this season has not been as strong as 2013-14, the new back court will need time to gel. Virginia Commonwealth University closed out the Legends Classic with a 77-63 win over Oregon in the consolation game to run their invitational record 3-1. The Rams overcame early shooting woes to down Toledo 77-68 and then demolished Maryland-Eastern Shore 106-66 before heading into the Barclays Center for a showdown with #12 Villanova in the opening game of the Championship bracket. Trailing by only two (32-30) going into half-time, the Rams had a nice 6-0 to open the second half before they lost control of the game and fell 77-53. Despite the margin Coach Shaka Smart’s team bounced back the next night against Ducks in a game they controlled from opening tip and went on to win 77-63.

La Salle, Rhode Island and Saint Louis:C — La Salle swept their preliminary round games with St. Peter’s (59-50) and St. Francis of New York (73-60), but lost both “host” bracket games at the Barclays Center (of all places). Virginia put up eight points before La Salle scored a field goal. The Cavaliers put together a 10-6 run over the next five minutes to expand their margin to 10 points. Over the last 8:25 of the first half the Cavaliers put together a 19-11 run to expand their edge to 18. While La Salle managed trim the eventual losing margin to eight, they were never in the game. They lost the second game to Vanderbilt by 13, 68-55 to level their record Barclays Center Classic record to 2-2. Coach Dan Hurley’s squad traveled to Orlando to participate in the three-game Orlando Classic. Opening against #11 Kansas, the Rams registered a 76-60 loss. They went on to beat Santa Clara 66-44, which set up their third round game versus Georgia Tech. The Rams lost to the Yellow Jackets, 64-61 to close out with a 1-2 record. The Billikens hosted Texas A&M–Corpus Christi and lost by six, 62-56. They squeaked by North Carolina A&T 58-55 before traveling to Texas for their “host” bracket games in the Corpus Christi Coastal Classic. Drubbed by Mississippi State 75-50 in the first round, Coach Jim Crews’ squad bounced back versus Bradley 60-57 to finish 2-2. Rhody and SLU are young squads, the games, while disappointing immediately, will pay dividends later. Read the rest of this entry »

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

With over 1,000 games to track over the next 15 weeks and a 351-team division that routinely offers 120 or more game-winning programs for consideration (the traditional measure of “a good season”), the Selection Committees of the past few seasons increasingly depend on quantitative analysis to separate the better teams (at times offering modest records) from those that appear to be better teams.

Shaka Smart and VCU kicked off the season with a solid victory over Tennessee. Several other A-10 schools had quality wins as well. (Getty)

Here is Why These A-10 First Weekend Wins and Losses are Important:

Virginia Commonwealth vs. Tennessee (85-69) — The Rams’ recorded the conference’s first win over a power conference opponent on Friday night. How focused can the Volunteers be after their fan base ran former head coach Cuonzo Martin out of Knoxville, and Martin’s successor, Donnie Tyndall, became a “person of interest” in an NCAA investigation into program practices during his tenure at Southern Miss? Power conference membership will boost Tennessee’s index ranking (take your pick — Sagarin or kenpom or RPI or BPI — the effect will be present to some degree) whenever the Vols step on to the court with a conference-mate. Any win Tennessee manages this season will benefit VCU’s — and indirectly, the entire A10’s — ranking.

George Washington at Rutgers (73-50) — The conferences change, but Rutgers consistently finds the bottom of standings wherever the basketball program is located. Expect no different this season as the Scarlet Knights will sit at the bottom of the best conference in Division I. The math works out for the Colonials, as they won a road game (RPI bonus) by double figures against a team whose conference is ranked higher than the Atlantic 10.

Joe Dzuback is the RTC correspondent for the Atlantic 10 Conference. You can also find his musings online at Villanova by the Numbers or on Twitter @vtbnblog.

Looking Back

The schools in the Atlantic 10 broke a conference record by sending six teams to the NCAA Tournament last March. Although the seeds fell in a narrow range from #5 (Virginia Commonwealth and Saint Louis) to #11 (Dayton), the A-10 drew one bid fewer than the Big 12 (seven), tied the Big Ten and Pac-12 (six each), while outdrawing the American (four), the Big East (four) and the SEC (three). What a way to end a season that began with hand-wringing over the departures of Charlotte, Temple and Xavier. Although the conference standard-bearers Saint Louis and VCU did not survive the first weekend (VCU went from the hunter to the hunted, falling to Stephen F. Austin in an overtime Round of 64 game) and A-10 Tournament Champion Saint Joseph’s fell to eventual National Champion Connecticut, Dayton did advance to the Elite Eight before falling to Florida, 62-52.

It was a great year for Shaka Smart, VCU, and the rest of the A10 last season. (US Presswire)

Rumors swirling around the Barclays Center during the Atlantic 10 Tournament had the A-10 in negotiations with Barclays and the Atlantic Coast Conference over access to the venue for their 2017 conference tournament. The conference had Barclays locked up through 2017, but the ACC (with ESPN’s backing) wanted a New York City venue for its 2017 and 2018 conference tournaments. The A-10 eventually agreed to relocate its tournament site for the 2017 (Pittsburgh’s Consol Center) and 2018 (Washington D.C.’s Verizon Center) seasons in exchange for an extension at the Barclays for the 2019-21 seasons and a commitment for three conference double-headers to be staged annually there in the 2015, 2016 and 2017 seasons. Read the rest of this entry »

Louisville Courier-Journal: The top game of the weekend for entertainment value has to be tonight’s father-son coaching matchup between Rick Pitino and Richard Pitino as Louisville and Minnesota meet in the Armed Forces Classic at U.S. Air Base Borinquen, in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The two Pitinos have met before in 2012 when Richard was in his first year at Florida International, in a game arranged to help out the younger Pitino’s program with exposure and a nice paycheck. Obviously this is a somewhat different situation, with both schools in power leagues focusing on trips to the NCAA Tournament next March. Instead of money and exposure as the main motivators, this is a chance to honor the U.S. Armed Forces, share a little family time, and get an early look at how each squad stacks up against good competition. With all that in play, whichever Pitino wins may not feel too bad about beating the other.

DailyProgress.com: Credit should be given to Tony Bennett as Virginia is the lone ACC school that will open its season on an opponent’s home court. The Cavaliers will make the one-hour trip up to Harrisonburg, Virginia, to play intrastate rival James Madisontonight. As this article points out, last year’s Virginia performance was the classic case of the sum being greater than the parts. Four of those parts will be missing tonight, counting graduated starters Joe Harris and Akil Mitchell along with suspended players London Perrantes and Evan Nolte. But as this game preview points out, the Dukes will also be without two suspended players because of an off-campus altercation with each other in October. One of those suspended was James Madison’s leading scorer from last year, so, even on the road, the Cavaliers may not face too tough of an opener after all.

WRALSportsFan: After a second consecutive year of negative preseason issues surrounding his program, at least Roy Williams doesn’t have to face the same roster uncertainty that he had to deal with in 2013-14. It remains to be seen if the dark cloud of scandal will have a major effect on a North Carolina team that appears poised for a special 2014-15 campaign, but expect Williams to continue to field questions after tonight’s game against North Carolina Central that are unrelated to on-court performance. UNC’s opponent is coming off its first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, so this may not be a total mismatch, but as NCCU coach LaVelle Moton indicated at a recent press conference, he is not sure how good team is with so many transfer players and preseason injuries. We will be on press row for opening night at the Smith Center, so follow us on Twitter (@rtcACC) for live updates during the game, and more importantly, for reports from Williams’ postgame press conference.

Greensboro News & Record: Duke is the only ACC team that will play back-to-back games on Friday and Saturday, as the Blue Devils host Presbyterian and then Fairfield as part of the Coaches vs. Cancer preliminary round. This article notes that freshman Tyus Jones looks to have already established himself as Duke’s starting point guard. The writer goes on to say Jones will be the first rookie starting as a Duke point guard since Austin Rivers began there in 2011-12, a common misconception. Rivers was never a point guard in his one year at Duke although he was often mentioned as one, perhaps in part because of his famous father, Doc Rivers, who was a longtime NBA point guard. Anyway, it will be interesting to see how Duke’s team chemistry works in these first two tune-up games before heading to Indianapolis to face Michigan State on Tuesday night. We will be in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday night to see how Duke’s veteran guards, Quinn Cook and Rasheed Sulaimon, adjust to coming off the bench, so follow us on Twitter (@rtcACC) for additional live in-game and postgame coverage.

BostonUSA.com: On Sunday, Boston College will take on Massachusetts in the middle game of the second annual Coaches vs. Cancer Tripleheader in Boston’s TD Garden, home of the NBA’s Celtics. The Minutemen only return two starters from last season’s NCAA Tournament team, but they have three others who played at least 30 games in 2013-14, so there’s some decent experience available for Derek Kellogg. It will be the second game of the season for both teams, as Boston College opens with New Hampshire in Conte Forum tonight, while UMass hosts Siena. It will be interesting to see if new coach Jim Christian’s Eagles display improvement on the defensive end, an area where ex-coach Steve Donahue’s teams always struggled. Probably the best team at Sunday’s event will be Harvard, which plays Holy Cross in the last game of the day.

Here we go… headfirst into another season heralded by our 2014-15 edition of Thirty Reasons We Love College Basketball, our annual compendium of YouTube clips from the previous season completely guaranteed to make you wish games were starting tonight rather than 30 days from now. Over the next month you’ll get one reason per day until we reach the new season on November 14. We’ve captured what we believe were the 30 most compelling moments from last season, some of which will bring back goosebumps and others of which will leave you shaking your head in astonishment. For all of this year’s released posts, click here.

Walker Carey (@walkerRcarey) is the NCAA Tournament’s Midwest Region correspondent, which begins Friday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis with Tennessee vs. Michigan followed by Louisville vs. Kentucky. The South Regional Reset and the West Regional Reset published yesterday, and the East Regional Reset will release later today. Make sure to also follow @RTCMWRegion for news and analysis from Indy throughout the week.

New Favorite: #4 Louisville. The new favorite is the old favorite, but after the first four days of Tournament action, determining a favorite was not an easy task. Louisville was pushed to the brink by #13 seed Manhattan in its first game before needing a late flurry Saturday to race by #5 Saint Louis. The Cardinals still appear to be the best team in this region, but they are going to need to be sharper in Indianapolis than they were in Orlando if they want to advance to their third consecutive Final Four. To be sharper, Rick Pitino’s squad is going to need guard Russ Smith to elevate his play. The senior has struggled thus far, shooting just 6-of-19 from the field and committing 13 turnovers over the first two games.

The intensity in Indy Friday evening should be at an all-time high.

Horse of Darkness: #11 Tennessee. For the third time in the four years of the First Four, a team has won three games to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. Tennessee will arrive in Indianapolis after a win over Iowa in Dayton and wins over #6 Massachusetts and #14 Mercer in Raleigh. The Volunteers showed during those three wins that they are a very tenacious defensive team and possess a bruising tandem in the post with forwards Jeronne Maymon and Jarnell Stokes. The most amazing part of Tennessee’s run to the second weekend might be that Volunteers head coach Cuonzo Martin had been viewed as someone on the hot seat late in the regular season. There was even a faction of the Volunteers fan base that banded together to try to get the school to fire Martin and hire former coach Bruce Pearl. You have to wonder what those fans are thinking now, as the team is headed to the Sweet Sixteen, now with Martin at the controls.